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What they said about ...

The prospect of gay marriage in Spain was banished by a conservative coalition in the senate on Wednesday. A bill to legalise gay weddings was defeated by 131 votes to 119 when the opposition Popular party joined conservatives from Catalonia.

The Catholic church, which had condemned the legislation as a threat to family values and the fabric of Spanish society, received the news "with relief", said La Razón. The paper quoted a church spokesman as saying: "There had been repeated expressions of disagreement, loud and clear, about this unprecedented and unknown legislation, which does not protect the rights of the minority and discriminates against the majority."

The bill had "suffered its umpteenth setback" said El Mundo, but "the consequences of this defeat are merely symbolic as the congress will quash it and approve the bill put forward by the Socialists." That should happen next week, making Spain the third European country to legalise gay marriage, after Belgium and the Netherlands. Nevertheless, said the paper, supporters of the bill "should reflect on the vituperation that this initiative is provoking" among the bill's detractors.

Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands of Spaniards had taken to the streets in protest against the bill. The demonstration, said ABC , showed "the ability of a large part of civil society to organise itself around values and principles". The paper criticised the government for trying to pass the bill without consultation. "Catholics have felt under attack on many fronts since the first days of the Socialist government," it said. "The government is determined ... to satisfy minority demands at the expense of the majority."

"All human beings are born free and equal in law," countered José Antonio Martin Pallin in El País. And the "incredible spectacle" of some religious leaders' behaviour in resisting change was reminiscent of the church's complicity in propping up the Franco dictatorship. "Its adoration, to the extent of covering up while executions were ordered, deserves to be remembered," he said. Scholars of the civil war should also consider "how much responsibility many of the bishops might have in this battle, which is destroying civil liberties".

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